IBLOG SPACE

Chrome for Android may have set its sights on being the default browser on your Ice Cream Sandwich smartphone, but you’ll have to make do with no Flash Player support if you give in to the new beta’s allure. Having announced that its Flash Player mobile plans were over back in November, Adobe has confirmed that Chrome for Android does indeed arrive too late for a plugin of its own. That’s despite Android 4.0 already having Flash Player support in the native browser. Flash Player for ICS was released near the end of 2011, Adobe’s final mobile flourish before it turned its attentions to HTML5. The decision to end Flash Player development for mobile devices followed long-standing criticism of the technology, most notably from Apple founder Steve Jobs, though the proliferation of Flash content online meant that for many users it was a necessary evil. For now, Chrome for Android is only available if you’re on 4.0, meaning it’s a small percentage – around 1-percent, in fact – who get to play

Record label EMI has taken a company called ReDigi to court for copyright infringement charges alleging that it makes unauthorized copies of songs for its music reselling business. ReDigi is a website where music fans can go and sell digital tracks that they no longer want. The way the service works is ReDigi combs through the customer’s hard drive on their computer looking for music and then copies the music to its website and deletes the original tracks. The idea is that the music listed for resell is then no longer in possession of the original owner, much the same way selling a used CD works. EMI was seeking a preliminary injunction against ReDigi that would force the music reseller to shut down pending the outcome of the court case. However, US District Judge Richard Sullivan said that he was going to let the case go to trial is allowing ReDigi to remain open. Sullivan noted that the case had many “fascinating” technological and legal questions involved. On the surface, what ReDig

Federal authorities moved to shut down as many illegal streaming sites as possible ahead of the Super Bowl last weekend. It has become very common over the years for websites to illegally stream the Super Bowl, even Tom Brady did it. The big difference this year is the fans could watch the Super Bowl streaming from NBC legally and according to NBC, several million people did just that. NBC reports that 2.1 million people tuned into the live Internet stream of Super Bowl XLVI. The statistic for the number of users comes from two companies that measure traffic, including Omniture and mDialog. The number of online viewers is still the tiniest drop in the bucket of overall Super Bowl viewers with an average of 111.3 million watching the game on TV. NBC notes that the viewership for the streaming game was up significantly from the normal streaming viewership of weekly games that NBC says are watched by an average of 300,000 unique users. NBC was also streaming clips from the game along with

Sony has a new super-telephoto lens for the size-queens and long-distance spies among you, theSony SAL500F40G, a 500mm fixed focal length G Lens to add some serious heft to the front of your DSLR. An F.4.0 maximum aperture and weather-resistant body add up to a lens ideal for high-speed photos and video, Sony reckons, as well as delivering SteadyShot INSIDE image stabilisation with the company’s Alpha-series cameras. Inside, Sony has used eleven elements in ten groups, three of which are Extra-low Dispersion glass. The company has also debuted a new Nano AR Coating system which promises to reduce internal reflections by up to 80-percent over earlier models, cutting down on lens flare and ghosting. The carbon-fiber lens hood is also lined with black velvet fibers, so as to absorb incident light. On the outside, there are interlocking seals front and back to keep out dust and moisture, which Sony says are good enough to keep driving rain from ruining your shot. There’s also a new autofoc

Microsoft has Android device makers by the short and curlies when it comes patent fees. Virtually all manufacturers who are creating Android smartphones and tablets license patents from Microsoft. It seems like Microsoft is set to get a taste of its own medicine from Motorola. Apparently, a German court appears set to side with Motorola in a patent dispute that has to do with patents used for video compression and decompression technology. Microsoft is allegedly using patented tech in some of its most important and popular products. The Microsoft products that Motorola subsidy General Instrument Corporation alleges infringe on its patents include Windows 7, IE9, Windows Media Player, and Xbox 360. The amount of money generated in sales from Windows 7 and the Xbox 360 is massive and Motorola is seeking 2.25% of all the sales of those products in royalties. Motorola likes the 2.25% number, and wanted Apple to pay that much for patents it was infringing on. Microsoft has never confirmed e

Logitech has outed its latest wireless peripheral, the Touch Mouse M600, and it’s gagging for you to stroke, tickle and generally caress it. Topped with a touch-sensitive surface suitable for both left and right handed users, the M600 can handle click-taps and swipes for gestures, and supports Logitech’s Flow Scroll software for smoother on-screen navigation. In fact, Logitech reckons it’s as smooth as the scrolling you’re used to on your smartphone. Connectivity is via the company’s Unifying Receiver, a compact USB dongle that can pair with up to six Logitech wireless peripherals simultaneously. Interestingly, the Touch Mouse M600 gives a choice of power options. The mouse is usually powered with two regular AA batteries, but users can choose to ditch one of them if they’d prefer a lighter peripheral. With two in place, you can apparently expected up to six months of use; half of that if you only use one. The Logitech Touch Mouse M600 is available for preorder now, priced at $69.99. I

If you follow the tablet market closely, you’ll be familiar with HP TouchPad that launched packing webOS and met a quick demise when sales were not good, and the tablet received some poor review scores. Some will also recall that during the TouchPad blowout sale, a few of the tablets allegedly shipped and were running Android out-of-the-box. The version of Android that those tablets were running has now been gifted from HP to the open-source geeks of the world. HP never did figure out how exactly those tablets shipped with Android pre-installed. The tablets shipping with Android created a stir because companies that ship Android devices are required to make the kernel open source. Since HP didn’t officially release the tablets running Android, it was not required to make the kernel of its internal build open-source. However, HP has now offered that internal Android build to the open-source movement. In essence, releasing the Android kernel is a goodwill gesture on HP’s part since it wa

Sony’s PS Vita 3G will hit the UK on February 22, carrier Vodafone has confirmed, on a pre-pay data plan which – when topped up for the first time – will unlock a free download of WipEout 2048. Set to hit the US in 3G formon AT&T also on February 22, the Vita will be priced at £279 ($444) in the UK and come with a 4GB memory card and a pre-pay data SIM. A £5 initial top-up is good for 250MB of data (that expires after 30 days) over Vodafone’s 3G network. Of course, there’s also WiFi if you’d rather not use the 3G. Those who buy the PS Vita 3G elsewhere will be able to get WipEout 2048 themselves by slotting in a Vodafone SIM and topping up £5. Released in Japan in December 2011, the PS Vita has struggled to gain a grip on sales, with a lackluster line-up of titles blamed for continuing disappointment at the checkout. That will hopefully change by the time the Vita drops in the US and Europe, with the promise of cheaper downloaded games; however, Sony is courting further disappointm

Sony’s PS Vita launched to some decently strong sales in Japan back during the holiday season of 2011. Japanese sales of the portable console quickly fell off and are now below 20,000 a week. The Vita is set to launch in the US and if you’re hoping to be a get your old UMD PSP games over to the Vita, Sony has announced really bad news. There will be no UMD Passport program in the United States like the program Sony operates in Japan. Japanese gamers with a large collection of UMD games can tie those games to their PSN accounts and then downloaded digital copy of the same game to the Vita for roughly $13. That didn’t seem like a very good deal for a game you already own when I first heard about the UMD Passport. Bt’s infinitely better than just being SOL as gamers in the US are. I’ve seriously begun to think Sony is content to shoot itself in the foot in the portable gaming market. In short, if you have a large library of UMD games that you enjoy playing on the current PSP, you better k

If you are a fan of the Forza 4 racing game on Xbox 360, you’ll be glad to hear that there’s a new car pack now available. The new car pack launched yesterday and adds a bunch of new racing cars from the American Le Mans series. The pack includes 10 cars starting with the 2011 Audi Sport North America R8 TDI wearing #2 livery. Also included is the 2011 Panoz #050 Panoz Racing Abruzzi. One of my favorites in the pack is the 2010 Dodge Challenger SRT8 owned by UFC fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. If you like old school Japanese race cars the 1991 Mazda #55 Team Mazdaspeed 787B with the Wankel rotary engine is in the pack. Another of my favorite cars is included in the new car pack, the 1995 Ford Mustang Cobra R. The remaining vehicles and pack include: 2011 Bentley Platinum Motorsports Continental GT, 1986 #2 Audi Sport Quattro S1 rally car, 1992 Alpha Romeo 155 Q4, 2011 Holden HSV GTS, and rounding out the cars is the 2011 Volkswagen Polo GTI. This individual pack sells for 560 Micros

Olympus knows what photographers really want: something so teeth-clenchingly retro on the outside that they weep tiny tears of joy, but jam-packed full of the latest tech inside so that they’re not embarrassed on Flickr. The Olympus OM-D E-M5 promises to deliver just that, with classic OM analog styling from the 1970s brought neatly up to date with a digital revamp. Out goes the Kodachrome, replaced with a 16.1-megapixel Live MOS sensor, 120fps high-res electronic viewfinder (EVF) and a 3-inch posable OLED touchscreen. Olympus’ speedy autofocus system from the PEN E-P3 has been brought over, though with a speed boost, and there’s 9fps burst shooting in Single AF mode. 3D autofocus tracking can keep a fix on subjects as they move not only up and down in the frame, but further away or closer to the camera. There’s the usual Full HD 1080i video capture (though not 1080p, it seems), together with ISO support up to 25,600 and weatherproofing of the body itself, which is ruggedized against w

Nokia has announced a further round of job losses, shifting more cellphone production to Asia and turning existing factories elsewhere to “smartphone product customization” to satisfy niche demand. Around 4,000 employees are expected to lose their jobs at Nokia’s Komarom, Hungary, Reynosa, Mexico and Salo, Finland facilities by the end of 2012, with the three factories moving to create boutique customized devices for the American and European markets. As for regular production, device assembly will be moved to Nokia’s facilities in Asia. As the company points out “the majority of component suppliers” are based there, and a review of smartphone manufacturing efficiency the Finnish company completed last year suggested Nokia needed to streamline its production if it wanted to stay competitive with rivals. Nokia announced its first batch of factory shut-downs back in September 2011, axing around 3,500 jobs from a Romanian facility. At the same time, the company also announced plans to shu

Microsoft has brought its OneNote digital notetaking app to Android, the latest cross-platform push from the Windows company as its software teams spread their wares beyond their own PC, gaming and mobility devices. A free download from the Android Market, OneNote allows you to create text and image notes and sync them across to the full Office 2010 version as well as the web-based viewer using SkyDrive storage. Notes can include checklists for easy task management, and bullets for lists. However, unlike the full version of the software, there’s no support for handwritten notes, and inked notes created on a PC can’t be viewed on the Android app. There’s also no voice note support, and early-adopters have been complaining about the absence of a widget. It’s a shame, as OneNote has always been the great unsung hero of Microsoft’s tablet strategy; in fact we’vegone on record before as saying the company could do a whole lot worse than make it their centerpiece of aniPad-alternative tablet

LG has begun teasing a new 5-inch Android handset, the LG Optimus Vu, presumably ahead of a Mobile World Congress launch later this month. The oversized smartphone features an unusual 4:3 aspect ratio display, which LG argues is a better fit for the human hand, while inside is tipped to be a 1.5GHz Qualcomm WPQ8060 dual-core paired with 1GB of RAM. Still unconfirmed is exactly what resolution the big screen runs at, though LG is believed to be offering an 8-megapixel main camera and there’s what looks to be a front-facing camera lens visible in the video teaser. 8GB of ROM space and NFC is also believed to be onboard, the latter unsurprising as LG has already included the short-range wireless in its recent PRADA Phone 3.0. Beyond that there are only tidbits to be gleaned from the clip, which shows the PRADA-style circular metal buttons for lock/power along with a sliding microUSB cover door. What we’re really interested to see is whether LG has followed Samsung’s similarly sizable Gala

LG has begun teasing a new 5-inch Android handset, the LG Optimus Vu, presumably ahead of a Mobile World Congress launch later this month. The oversized smartphone features an unusual 4:3 aspect ratio display, which LG argues is a better fit for the human hand, while inside is tipped to be a 1.5GHz Qualcomm WPQ8060 dual-core paired with 1GB of RAM. Still unconfirmed is exactly what resolution the big screen runs at, though LG is believed to be offering an 8-megapixel main camera and there’s what looks to be a front-facing camera lens visible in the video teaser. 8GB of ROM space and NFC is also believed to be onboard, the latter unsurprising as LG has already included the short-range wireless in its recent PRADA Phone 3.0. Beyond that there are only tidbits to be gleaned from the clip, which shows the PRADA-style circular metal buttons for lock/power along with a sliding microUSB cover door. What we’re really interested to see is whether LG has followed Samsung’s similarly sizable Gala

The Nintendo Zone is a special gateway for your Nintendo 3DS if you happen to be in one of the thousands of special Wi-Fi hotspot locations that Nintendo has set up across the country. These hotspots are in Best Buy stores, airports, malls, and many other locations throughout the country and give gamers with a 3DS access to special content. Now, though, it’s possible to gain access to that same set of content without leaving your house. And as anyone living in the US in the 2010s knows, being able to do something from your house is always better than going out to do it. Yes, perhaps it is sad that someone might not have the energe to go to the local McDonald’s to connect to Nintendo Zone, but we’re not judging. A user who goes by the online handle DarkWish found out that this hack is actually one of extreme ease. In fact, it’s so simple it almost boggles the mind. Anyone can do it, and here’s how: “If you set your wireless network to be named attwifi and make it unsecured, then add tha

Olympus has taken the covers off three new digital cameras today, the SZ-31MR iHS, the TG-820 iHS, and the OM-D E-M5. Okay, so that doesn’t mean anything. Unlike smartphones, digital camera model names are still just a confusing conglomeration of letters and numbers. But here’s what is cool – the SZ-31MR iHS has 920,000-dot touch-screen LCD display, the TG-820 iHS offers protection from everything from water to being crushed, and the OM-D E-M5 has the world’s fastest autofocusing system. And that’s just the beginning of the specs. Let’s look at each of them individually. So going back to the SZ-31MR, it has a 16-megapixel sensor and an eye-popping 24x Wide-Angle Optical Zoom Lens. It also packs in a Multi-Recording feature that allows users to take photos and video simultaneously. There’s functionality for movie and image stabilization, and it offers full HD video and HDMI control for 1080p playback. It will be available in April for around $400. For the TG-820 iHS (pictured), it’s all

Users around the world today complained of prolonged periods of slow or no access to Facebook either through their browser or mobile phone app. The social networking giant did not offer any sort of comment as to what caused the extended period of technical difficulties, but that didn’t stop frustrated users from taking their anger to other social networking sites. That is to say, there was a lot of tweeting about Facebook’s slow connection. One memorable Twitter message that was quoted was, “Facebook has been slow/down since the IPO. Are they all too busy selling their shares and buying fancy things? I might be.” This kind of comment underlines just how much more Facebook will have to come under the microscope now that it will be a publicly traded company. This also begs the question of if getting listed will lead to more transparency since there’s more accountability, or less transparency since Facebook now has to make its shareholders happy above anyone else. The initial public offer

When it comes to that special someone in your life, nothing says “I love you” quite like a new phone. Actually, what it really says is, “Hey guess what? We have to stay together for another two years or we’re both going to end up on The People’s Court over a cell phone bill dispute.” Ah, Valentine’s Day. So T-Mobile has a great promotion available one day only, on February 11, to get you in that commitment spirit that only the middle of February can bring. In line with other ‘free phone’ promotions T-Mobile has offered in the last year, this one-day event includes an impressive selection of free-after-contract phones, including the SpringBoard and the Galaxy S II. There will even be “select tablets” at no cost to those who sign up for a new two-year service agreement. Some of these devices are as much as $200 on a normal day so this deal is nothing to sneeze at. “T-Mobile has a commitment to make the 4G experience affordable and accessible to everyone, so this sweet deal on smartphones

This isn’t really a big surprise. After the Spyro adventure game Skylanders became a top 10 seller in North America and was deemed the most successful new kids-oriented intellectual property launch in 2011, the question of a sequel was one of when, not if. That time is now, with Activision teasing the upcoming Skylanders Giants, which will be on display at the International Toy Fair in New York City this month. A video game debut at a toy show? That is certainly not the norm, and it goes a long way in describing why Skylanders became so successful. It managed to find that perfect blend of engaging gameplay and physical, real-world collectibility. The game uses actual toys that players can buy from GameStop or other stores, which are placed on a special peripheral connected to the game console that allows players to bring that toy to life. It doesn’t stop there, as players can then take their toys to their friends’ houses and retain all the customization and leveling up they’ve already

We’ve all been in a restaurant and wondered when the heck the waitress would come to the table to take our order. Buffalo Wild Wings is trying to make that a thing of the past, by outfitting select pilot locations with iPads at every table, each equipped with a proprietary app that allows customers to place their order whenever they want. The devices also come with a pre-loaded selection of games. The idea has already been in place at a Buffalo Wild Wings in Toronto, Canada and apparently it’s been successful because now it’s being implemented in the US, at a location in Minneapolis. The customized iPads come in durable cases that are secured to the tables and incorporate a built-in battery charger that allows for 12-15 hours of continuous use. In addition to ordering food, customers can check Facebook and Twitter accounts. The restaurant chain is eliciting feedback to find out if customers prefer the instant ordering service or the ability to check their social networks and play games

LG really wants to be part of the video game industry. Well, perhaps that’s stretching it a bit too far. Let’s just say it wouldn’t mind if its name actually came up one day in a discussion about gaming. That’s what the company is hoping for as it introduces a new video game-related partnership to bring additional content to its line of Internet-connected TV sets. The latest partnership with Unity Technologies brings on a company that has expanded 3D and 3D interactivity to smartphones, tablets, set-top boxes, and TV sets from other manufacturers. Unity has a roster of 750,000 registered developers spanning the industry from independent hobbyist to large multinational publishers. Although Unity has dealt in programs that aren’s considered video games, this deal with LG seems to be all about a new chapter in how gamers interact with their TV. In 2012, the company will offer TV sets that come with special motion controllers for remotes, which will work directly into this new strategy. Ri

Apparently not enough people liked iLike. The service that was once seen as a potential revolution to the online music industry has shut its doors and is now officially finished with its operations. The service was acquired by Myspace in 2009. Perhaps that was a sign that it wasn’t exactly destined for greatness. Nevertheless, it came onto the scene as a powerful new player and now remains as an example of how dynamic this social online landscape is. The company was off the ground in 2006, and by the early part of 2007 it was attracting millions of new users on a monthly basis. In case you never heard of this platform, iLike offered free music streaming and sought to offer recommendations and social sharing opportunities based on listening history. Think of it as a Pandora, Playlist.com, or Spotify. More than $17 million in funding went to iLike. The problem was even though iLike was generating as much as 1.5 billion pageviews per month, it didn’t have a great revenue model. Therein li

If you bought a phone at a SonyStyle store last year, it was most likely a Sony Ericsson Xperia phone. The Xperia name is trying to join the ranks of Evo, Droid, and Razr in the world of high-value Android brands. Later this month, we’ll see a whole new slate of Sony Xperia devices when they’re on display at the Mobile World Congress in Spain. Wait; did you catch the big difference in what we just wrote? It’s “Sony Xperia,” not “Sony Ericsson Xperia.” Sony decided to buy out its long-time mobile partner Ericsson so it could focus on creating a more unified vision for its mobile unit. In a world where consumers are increasingly connecting all their consumer electronics together, Sony wants to have complete control over how smartphones and tablets play into its equation. The company now refers to its cell phone division as Sony Mobile Communications. And that division is holding a press conference at this month’s big mobile trade show, though we don’t know anything beyond that. As far as

There have been a lot of game developers coming forward in support of speculation that Microsoft’s next-generation console will prevent players from buying used games and will register each game disc to one and only one system. From their perspective, it’s a way to ensure anyone who buys the game is fattening their paycheck. But at least one major developer has said it could be a big can of worms. The developer in question is CD Projekt, which is best known for creating the expansive role-playing game The Witcher 2. In an interview with Eurogamer, CD Projekt’s Adam Badowski was quoted as saying the idea of banning used games “can be a bad thing,” adding, “We are losing money not because of pirates; we are losing money because people decided not to buy our game.” Now there’s a refreshing dose of reality. Obviously, the idea of locking a game to one Xbox 720 unit creates more problems than it solves. There’s the issue of game rentals, taking a game over to a friend’s house, or needing to

A group of hackers claiming to be affiliated with the group known as Anonymous had until today been negotiating with Symantec for a safe return of stolen property through an online personality named YamaTough. The YamaTough personality spoke on behalf of the Lords of Dharmaraja, a known hacker collective responsible for several thefts and subsequent releases of data in similar security related events in the recent past, Norton Antivirus amongst them. At the time of this posting, portions of the codes claimed to have been stolen by LoD have been pasted in several public forums and YamaTough has refused payment of $50,000 USD as ransom for the destruction of all semblance of said codes. Of course it’s absurd to expect any such complete forfeiture of a set of stolen codes which could so very easily be copied out and duplicated, so who do we look to questioning the logic behind a cash sum trade to hackers such as this? According to LoD, it was Symantec spokesperson Chris Paden, not the FBI

A flaw discovered in the code of Trendnet’s connected home security camera systems have made thousands of private video feeds accessible by almost anyone on the internet. More than two dozen models of Trendnet home security cameras are vulnerable, allowing people to access the video feeds via the camera’s IP address without the need to enter a password. The flaw was first discovered and reported on in January by a blog called Console Cowboys, which revealed that by simply appending a specific code to a camera’s IP address, the password requirement could be bypassed. The blog posted detailed instructions on how to breach Trendnet cameras, resulting in links being posted to various message boards. Offices, children’s bedrooms, and even someone’s bathroom were viewable among the list of video feeds exposed. A list of 679 web addresses to exposed video feeds were posted to a message board within two days with more listings revealed that were also associated with Google Maps locations. Tren

Pentax has announced a new series of rugged cameras with the Optio WG-2 and Optio WG2-GPS models that are designed to take on any adventure and plenty of abuse. They feature a sporty rugged design similar to theWG-1 series but introduce a host of spec bumps. The Pentax Optio WG-2 camera is waterproof up to 12 meters or about 30 feet, dustproof, crush-proof, and hardy in cold weather down to -10C. Inside it packs a 16-megapixel back-illuminated sensor, with ISO up to 6400, and a 28mm-140mm lens with 5X zoom. The Optio WG-2 can capture Full HD video and offers a slow motion option. It also features a 3-inch 16:9 display with 460k resolution and anti-glare coating. The camera will be available sometime in March, priced at $350. For an extra $50 you can opt for the GPS-enabled version.

Google has presented its first iteration of the web-centric brand name it uses for both a web browser and an operating system, Chrome, here on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. This beta version of the app which now appears mostly to be a web browser is able to work with each other iteration of Chrome you’ve got open on all devices. It does this with a simple “Devices” interface which shows tabs each browser has open – the rest of the experience is centered around tabs as well, all with the aim of bringing you a speedy and simple internet browsing experience. The video you’re about to see shows both the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and the ASUS Transformer Prime, each of them running Android 4.x Ice Cream Sandwich, each of them running this first public release of Chrome Beta. You’ll find the experiences to be very similar with slight changes in icons and text locations due to size of display, and the same ability to see other devices as well as pre-fetch data from webpages before they’re needed

Excitement over the news that Windows 8 will be coming in an ARM-powered version for tablets and other low-power devices has been somewhat tempered by the idea that it will be hobbled, restricted to the pretty yet less powerful Metro user interface. Today Microsoft laid those fears to rest somewhat, implying via its MSDN blogthat both the X86/x64 and ARM versions would get the old-school desktop mode, familiar to any heavy Windows user. That’s great news for anyone who wants a full computing environment in a small package, not the mobile-style interface of the iPad and Android tablets. This shouldn’t be taken as an iron-clad confirmation: the blog post talks about power-saving measures for “both desktop and Metro-style apps”, specifically on system on a chip architectures like ARM. That implies, but doesn’t guarantee, that traditional desktop programs will still be allowed on ARM-powered Windows 8 machines, presumably using the old Windows 7 and earlier interface. Microsoft still isn’t

The Nokia Lumia 800 will be launching in the US after all and sources familiar with the plans have revealed that the device is arriving on February 14. Targeting Valentine’s Day shoppers, Microsoft will be offering the Lumia 800 in a special bundle available only from Microsoft’s retail stores. The bundle will cost $899 and includes a Nokia Play 360 Wireless Speaker, Purity HD Stereo headset, and an in-ear Bluetooth headset. Initially, the Lumia 800 will not be sold separately from the bundle, but will likely be made available on its own soon alongside the recently announced white edition. The Lumia 800 is Nokia’s first Windows Phone and has been available in Europe for some time already. Make sure to check out our hands-on for more details. A larger version of the device with LTE support, called the Lumia 900, has been announced for AT&T later this year.

The Apple iPhone 4S exclusive Siri intelligent virtual assistant feature is now responsible for 25% of searches performed on Wolfram Alpha, a computational knowledge engine developed by Wolfram Research. Siri taps Wolfram Alpha’s extensive database for various functions, such as computing basic calculations and answering factual queries. Apple collaborated with Wolfram Research on Siri, deeply integrating the company’s algorithms that power its other product, Mathematica. Users can type in complex queries, which Wolfram Alpha computes accurate answers for. Wolfram Alpha continues to expand its datasets and will be launching a pro version tomorrow that will add the ability to work with data and images. Wolfram Research was created by 52-year-old Stephen Wolfram, a computer scientist that published his first physics paper at age 15, earned his Ph.D. from Caltech, and won a MacArthur prize at age 22.

LG is planning to introduce a mid-range Windows Phone, according to a leak posted by PocketNow. An image of the device has surfaced and it’s reportedly the same handset as the LG Fantasy that was revealed in a leaked roadmap back in December. The LG Miracle is expected to sport a 4-inch super-bright NOVA display, 1GHz Snapdragon single-core processor, 8GB of internal storage, front-facing VGA camera, and a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera capable of 720p video capture. The Miracle will also support HSPA connectivity and include an NFC chip, which supports expectations for NFC support in the next Windows Phone update. The device will likely be unveiled at Mobile World Congress later this month.

The bipartisan organization of top technology executives known as TechNet has recently found that jobs that fall under the “App Economy” umbrella number in the six digits: 466,000 people in the USA alone. This study concludes that software applications for smartphones, tablets, and Facebook combined have created nearly 500,000 new jobs in the United States since 2005. This rapid increase of jobs from this environment spells good news for the technology world and especially the mobile world where app creation reigns supreme. It is California that leads the states with app-related jobs, it holding a whopping 25% of all App Economy jobs in the United States. New York is the top metropolitan area for app-related jobs, but the combined efforts of San Jose and San Francisco California trump New York in numbers. The study held no reservations about how burgeoning the market is in this sector, calling it nothing short of a phenomenon: “The incredibly rapid rise of smartphones, tablets, and soc

There’s a project going on at the moment with DARPA in which teams are asked to create their own unmanned aerial vehicles, and it’s time for proof-of-flight time in the field. The first robot in this group of groups that’s being tipped as the leader at the moment is the GremLion UAV from the National University of Singapore. This little monster is a four-wheeled machine with a pod that opens up and deploys propellers that allow it to lift straight up off the ground and land precisely as it jumps. This first entry also happens to look like a Death Star and will be capable of 2 miles of live video streaming as well as seeing a tree so it does not bonk directly in to it. Have a peek at the demonstration video for the GremLion here, and try not to freak out too much over how incomplete it still is at the moment: Next there’s the X-MAUS, a quad-copter that is able to unfold itself after it’s taken off so that it can fly as an airplane for more efficient movement. This model appears very muc

There’s a project going on at the moment with DARPA in which teams are asked to create their own unmanned aerial vehicles, and it’s time for proof-of-flight time in the field. The first robot in this group of groups that’s being tipped as the leader at the moment is the GremLion UAV from the National University of Singapore. This little monster is a four-wheeled machine with a pod that opens up and deploys propellers that allow it to lift straight up off the ground and land precisely as it jumps. This first entry also happens to look like a Death Star and will be capable of 2 miles of live video streaming as well as seeing a tree so it does not bonk directly in to it. Have a peek at the demonstration video for the GremLion here, and try not to freak out too much over how incomplete it still is at the moment: Next there’s the X-MAUS, a quad-copter that is able to unfold itself after it’s taken off so that it can fly as an airplane for more efficient movement. This model appears very muc

The game known as Psychonauts was not exactly a winner when it was first released back in 2005, but amid internet furor by its now cult-status following, Minecraft producers at Mojang have expressed interest in a second installment. If you head over to Psychonauts current homepage, you’ll find that the original is alive and well on the Mac App Store and Steam for Mac and PC, but it’s not enough for future-looking gamers! Thusly upon hearing that Psychonauts’ developing studio Double Fine’s founder Tin Schafer was lamenting that he’d love to create a sequel but had no cash to do it, Notch from Mojang chimed in. It was in an interview with Digital Spy that Shcafer was speaking about the original Phsychonauts, saying how he’s been wishing he’d be able to create a sequel. Things aren’t so simple as that, of course, as he notes, as it’s not just a developer you need to create a game on such a scale as what Psychonauts 2 would need. “I mean I get a lot of, on Twitter or whatever, daily quest